We can read English, which means that we can also read Middle English, although it takes quite a bit of getting used to. Reading Old English, though, can be just about impossible without a bunch of studying. For one thing, it’s “inflected,” which is what you call a language where the words change depending on how you’re using them. Finnish, for example, is a heavily inflected language, which is why the Finnish word for “dog” is different depending on whether it’s a black dog, a white dog, the dog is running, sitting, eating, wet, friendly…anyway I have it on good authority that there are upwards of 60 different Finnish words for “dog.”
Modern English is partly based on Old English, though, and it lost some interesting inflected words along the way. Take the word “while” — as in “while you’re reading this silliness, I’m going to go find something more interesting to do.” If we want to talk about that event in the past, we can just say “while you were reading that silliness, I found $20 on the sidewalk.” But in the past there were several versions of “while” that we could have used to talk about something that took place in the past at the same time as something else.
You might have said “I was whilom lucky,” for example. “Whilom” means “while”, but in the past, like “the whilom powerful kingdom of Hungary” (1656). Or you could have used “erstwhile,” as in “her erstwhile rival” (1925). But your choices didn’t end there. “Quondam” also means the same thing, as in “Mr. C. Jennings, quondam of the city hotel in New York” (1841). “Quondam” isn’t actually related to the word “while” at all, though; it comes straight from Latin. Even though they already had several ways to say “while that was going on…”, English speakers never seem to have encountered a word from another language and said “no thanks, we don’t need any more words right now.”
“Quondam” is actually still in very occasional use in a specific context; in British English it refers to a person who previously held an official position and retired, or was removed. It’s even a bit of a put-down in some cases: “It was not long before the feckless sub-prior and community were petitioning for his return; they already had two other quondams on their hands” (1948).
In the spirit of the number of words for “dog” in Finnish, there’s Yet Another Version of “while:” “umwhile,” which was sometimes (inexplicably) spelled “umquhile.” It was pronounced the same way because the “qu” was silent (I have no idea why). Sir Walter Scott used “umquhile” fairly often: “The Lady of the umquhile Walter de Avenel was in very weak health in the Tower of Glendearg,” and “…umquhile Laurence Dumbie of Dumbiedikes had been gathered to his fathers in Newbattle kirkyard” (1820 and 1818).
Centuries ago there were subtle nuances of meaning determining when and where you’d use “erstwhile,” “umquhile,” “whilom,” or “quondam.” The only one you’re likely to find today — and it’s pretty unusual — is “erstwhile.” The whilom alternatives to while have all been obsolete since at least the late 1800s.
